Development Info Wasteland 3 Fig Update #9: Creating Talking Heads

[Infinitron]

Tags: InXile Entertainment; Maxx Kaufman; Wasteland 3

With only a week left on the clock for the Wasteland 3 Fig campaign, inXile continue their tradition of seemingly scrambling to find something relevant to post in their updates. In today's update, inXile's oft-maligned art director Maxx Kaufman writes about their production process for the detailed character models the game will use in dialogue with important characters. You might be glad to hear that said dialogue sequences are indeed inspired by the "talking heads" from the original Fallout games. There's a video showing the making of Fish-Lips, the belligerent raider boss from the gameplay mockup video:

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The update also includes a new character, a dangerously eccentric individual tentatively named "Mister Funtimes". He likes pins:

Well, hello there. Can I interest you in a pin? They’re good luck. No one hurts the people who wear my pins. They know I’ll visit them. At night, and with my little box of knives.

Yes, they ARE lovely, aren’t they? Take your pick. Well, not the ram. That one's mine. It gives me powers.

Hmm. Yes, the one with wings DOES suit you. No, no. I don’t need money. Just a promise. Wear my pin, and I’ll come to visit you one day, and ask a small favor. Nothing outrageous, I promise.

Just a little favor between friends.​

Hmmmkay. It'll be nice if they have another video on the way featuring this guy. Read the full update if you're in the interested in the technical details of how they're creating these characters.

 

[i.Razor]

Ok. Only few years to wait.

Just to imagine that W2 was crowdfunded in 2012. It's unbelievable how fast time have passed. 4 f#cking years.

 

[Darkzone]

Blender. Dont get me wrong i love blender, but inXile seem to lack the money for Autodesk products.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

There's a video showing the making of Fish-Lips, the belligerent raider boss from the gameplay mockup video

No it doesn't. It shows 10 minutes out of the 4-6 hours it took to make it.

Can't even do this right. What a joke.

 

[Mac_Orion]

Blender. Dont get me wrong i love blender, but inXile seem to lack the money for Autodesk products.

Underrail is made with blender, dont get me wrong, but maya is crappy for game development, 3d max is slow. Modo is good and i've seen some people do insane stuff with Softimage.

 

[Darkzone]

There's a video showing the making of Fish-Lips, the belligerent raider boss from the gameplay mockup video

No it doesn't. It shows 10 minutes out of the 4-6 hours it took to make it.
Can't even do this right. What a joke.

From all the blender timelapses that i have watched on youtube, i would guess it took way more than 4-6 hours.

 

[Mustawd]

maya is crappy for game development

Really? Why so?

Underrail is made with blender

You mean for the sprites? Isn't Underrail 2D?

 

[Lurker King]

Wasteland 3 Fig Update #9: Raping Fallout's corpse to make a game for causals

 

[Darkzone]

Blender. Dont get me wrong i love blender, but inXile seem to lack the money for Autodesk products.

Underrail is made with blender, dont get me wrong, but maya is crappy for game development, 3d max is slow. Modo is good and i've seen some people do insane stuff with Softimage.

I have seen many youtube videos where game devs / designers have worked with maya. But i would guess that you have more experience and knowledge on this topic than i do, so i take your word for it.

Mustawd perhaps he has simply misspoken and meant AoD, or that the figures have been made in 3d and then rendered in blender.

 

[Excidium II]

The 2D sprites are produced from 3D models like Fallout, Baldur's Gate, etc.

 

[Mustawd]

The 2D sprites are produced from 3D models like Fallout, Baldur's Gate, etc.

Right. But why would the program matter (i.e. Blender v Maya) if all you're doing is rendering the model in 2D anyway?

Hell, you can just as well do that inside Unity.

 

[Excidium II]

The 2D sprites are produced from 3D models like Fallout, Baldur's Gate, etc.

Right. But why would the program matter (i.e. Blender v Maya) if all you're doing is rendering the model in 2D anyway?

IDK nigga, ask a 3D artist.

But all those programs look immensily complex so I imagine experience/workflow preferences play a large part.

 

[Mustawd]

The paid programs generally have better UI and shortcuts than the open source ones. That's my experience with Photoshop and GIMP, and with my little experience with Blender (albeit 4 years ago) and watching Maya vids on youtube, that also seems to be the case. But I dunno either.

Mustawd perhaps he has simply misspoken and meant AoD, or that the figures have been made in 3d and then rendered in blender.

Well, he's an Underrail dev, so I'm guessing he meant the latter

Mac_Orion , mind elaborating? I'm actually p. interested in the reason.

 

[Mac_Orion]

maya is crappy for game development

Really? Why so?

Underrail is made with blender

You mean for the sprites? Isn't Underrail 2D?

Maya is good for animating but really slow for modeling, its also not really intuitive and more build towards movies and advertisement. And yes Underrail is 2D but 95% of the assets are pre-rendered and then mocket up a bit in Photoshop. Programs do matter as its much faster to make a generic stone in Zbrush, put a shader on it with Blender or Substance Painter, preconfigured adjustment layers in Photoshop and have 10 different variations in couple of hours than to draw everything from scratch every time you need a new variation.

 

[retamar]

If you want to model characters, nowadays everyone and their mothers uses Zbrush and then tweaks and exports to whatever you want, Maya has great tools for animation.
What people seems to forget that a real good render engine is everything, PoE would look 10 times better if they used Vray instead of the render engine built in Maya and autodesk stuff.

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

Do they really want to make the thing that much more comic than WL2?
I'm annoyed by all this wannabe funny stuff and names.

 

[Turtle-Zone 3000]

Wait does this mean they're also using blender for Bard's Tale 4?

 

[Kz3r0]

Do they really want to make the thing that much more comic than WL2?
I'm annoyed by all this wannabe funny stuff and names.

Depends, if instead of having a Wasteland game that wants to be a Fallout game that wants to be a Wasteland game they finally find their proper dimension I will very much prefer a Wasteland game that is a Wasteland game.

 

[I ASK INANE QUESTIONS]

Maya is good for animating but really slow for modeling, its also not really intuitive and more build towards movies and advertisement. And yes Underrail is 2D but 95% of the assets are pre-rendered and then mocket up a bit in Photoshop. Programs do matter as its much faster to make a generic stone in Zbrush, put a shader on it with Blender or Substance Painter, preconfigured adjustment layers in Photoshop and have 10 different variations in couple of hours than to draw everything from scratch every time you need a new variation.

Interesting. How long have you worked in game development? Any other projects besides Underrail?

 

[Kev Inkline]

Mr Funtimes sounds a cool npc concept, first time I got enthusiastic about anything WL3 related.

But then his design is quite shite, as the character model looks really boring. What's the fetish with big lips on everyone?

 

[pointcache]

Maya is good for animating but really slow for modeling, its also not really intuitive and more build towards movies and advertisement. And yes Underrail is 2D but 95% of the assets are pre-rendered and then mocket up a bit in Photoshop. Programs do matter as its much faster to make a generic stone in Zbrush, put a shader on it with Blender or Substance Painter, preconfigured adjustment layers in Photoshop and have 10 different variations in couple of hours than to draw everything from scratch every time you need a new variation.

Hello friend showed me your statement and we laughed together for a while. I even registered to ridicule your point a bit, i am doing 3d for 10 years, all kinds of it and i used majority of packages professionally for all kinds of purposes, i worked in archviz/production and currently its my 4rth year in game development. My main tool for modelling was 3ds max for a long time, however i transitioned to maya after experiementing with it, and realizing that out of all other packages it is the fastest and most efficient for gamedev modelling.
I just want to oppose your blant statement that maya is somehow inferior because from my pile of experience i just see that youre extrapolating your inability and badmouthing best package currently available, specifically for game development. (translation - if you can't, doesnt mean it's bad, mkay). Again it's not a personal attack, im aiming this comment at other people that will blindly trust what you say because of your developer badge, despite it being objectively wrong, cheers!
Here are some things i did so you understand my background

Spoiler

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

What's the fetish with big lips on everyone?

Guess he just likes em like that

Spoiler

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

But then his design is quite shite, as the character model looks really boring. What's the fetish with big lips on everyone?

It's probably one of those things that are supposed to be "funny".

 

[Kev Inkline]

Maya is good for animating but really slow for modeling, its also not really intuitive and more build towards movies and advertisement. And yes Underrail is 2D but 95% of the assets are pre-rendered and then mocket up a bit in Photoshop. Programs do matter as its much faster to make a generic stone in Zbrush, put a shader on it with Blender or Substance Painter, preconfigured adjustment layers in Photoshop and have 10 different variations in couple of hours than to draw everything from scratch every time you need a new variation.

Interesting. How long have you worked in game development? Any other projects besides Underrail?

You shouldn't ask questions that go against your nature.

But on topic: I find this interesting, now that we already got ruthless flaming a divergent opinion by a newly registered expert. Isn't there a graphics workflow discussion in Codex workshop subforum? If not, I would suggest splitting this (Infinitron) up and let's continue there?

If you want to model characters, nowadays everyone and their mothers uses Zbrush and then tweaks and exports to whatever you want, Maya has great tools for animation.
What people seems to forget that a real good render engine is everything, PoE would look 10 times better if they used Vray instead of the render engine built in Maya and autodesk stuff.

I am intrigued, I thought visuals was the strong side of PoE, how could they possibly be improved? Could you give an example of a game that looks better? Stasis (I haven't played so I wouldn't know)?

 

[agris]

I am intrigued, I thought visuals was the strong side of PoE, how could they possibly be improved? Could you give an example of a game that looks better? Stasis (I haven't played so I wouldn't know)?

I second the motion to split and have a discussion. Once that happens, bring in Pyke and let them go at it.

Regarding POE's graphics: allowing time for a paint over of each map would have really improved the quality IMO, and I think it's one of the things that Chris Bischoff (Pyke) does on all of his maps which is why his pop more.